Telnet Clients and mvBase Licensing

Introduction to mvBase Licensing

mvBase licensing assigns one license per physical user connected to mvBase, and reflects the number of users connected to mvBase. The number of users may or may not necessarily reflect the number of connections. mvBase licensing is NOT based on the number of connections actually logged on.

This concept allows users on Windows PCs (using the mvBase virtual terminal mv·TERM, or a 3rd party Terminal Emulator such as wIntegrate*) to have multiple connections (and thus multiple logons) to an mvBase server without consuming additional licenses.

Telnet Clients and Sharing mvBase Licenses

Telnet clients are defined as any client which communicates with the mvBase server via an mv.TELNET server running as part of an mvBase Workstation. These include the Telnet client which Microsoft supplies with Windows, wIntegrate and other 3rd party PC-based terminal emulators, and Telnet clients supplied with, or running on, OS/2, UNIX, MAC and other operating systems.

Sharing a license occurs when an individual user opens a first connection, which consumes one license, and then opens one or more subsequent connections, which will then "share" the first license. However, even if the original connection is disconnected, as long as any of the connections that shared this license are open, the user will continue to consume one license. In other words, for any one user there will be a minimum and a maximum of one license consumed when license sharing occurs.

User Choices for mvBase License Consumption

Users of Telnet clients running on a Windows PC may choose how their license consumption occurs, and may connect to an mv·Telnet server in one of these two ways:

1. To an mv·Telnet server running as part of a LOCAL mvWorkstation (on the same system as the mv·Telnet client). May have multiple connections to a mvBase server which share a single license. Such 3rd party terminal emulators, such as wIntegrate*, are then treated in exactly the same manner that the mvBase Virtual Terminal is treated with regard to license consumption.
2. To an mv·Telnet server running as part of a REMOTE mvWorkstation (on a different system from the mv·Telnet client). May have multiple connections to a mvBase server; each connection will consume a license, with no sharing.

Users of Telnet clients running on other platforms may not choose how their license consumption occurs, and will automatically consume one license for each Telnet connection.

Using USYSTEM() to Determine License Consumption

Three USYSTEM() function calls in mv·BASIC return license-related information:

• USYSTEM(201) returns the number of current licenses in use by connections.
• USYSTEM(202) returns the number of total connections.
• USYSTEM(203) returns the maximum number of licensed connections purchased. This number can also be seen in the Administration Utility, Server tab, Authorization... button.